BackgroundUnderstanding which factors influence participation in physical activity is important to improve the public health. The aim of the present review of reviews was to summarize and present updated evidence on personal and environmental factors associated with physical activity.MethodsMEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for reviews published up to 31 Jan. 2017 reporting on potential factors of physical activity in adults aged over 18 years. The quality of each review was appraised with the Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) checklist. The corrected covered area (CCA) was calculated as a measure of overlap for the primary publications in each review.ResultsTwenty-five articles met the inclusion criteria which reviewed 90 personal and 27 environmental factors. The average quality of the studies was moderate, and the CCA ranged from 0 to 4.3%. For personal factors, self-efficacy was shown as the strongest factor for participation in physical activity (7 out of 9). Intention to exercise, outcome expectation, perceived behavioral control and perceived fitness were positively associated with physical activity in more than 3 reviews, while age and bad status of health or fitness were negatively associated with participation in physical activity in more than 3 reviews. For environmental factors, accessibility to facilities, presence of sidewalks, and aesthetics were positively associated with participation in physical activity.ConclusionsThe findings of this review of reviews suggest that some personal and environmental factors were related with participation in physical activity. However, an association of various factors with physical activity could not be established because of the lack of primary studies to build up the organized evidence. More studies with a prospective design should be conducted to understand the potential causes for physical activity.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-017-4255-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Academically-focused learning activities beyond formal schooling are expanding in myriad forms throughout the world. This diverse realm of learning activities includes private supplementary education purchased by families such as private tutoring, online courses, cram schools, and learning center franchises. Some public schools also provide academically oriented after-school programs beyond their formal curricula. This review identifies factors relating to students, families, schools, and educational systems that affect participation in supplementary education. Macro forces are also related to the proliferation of learning activities outside of formal schooling. We discuss implications of this trend for educational stratification as well as challenges it creates for families and formal educational systems. Finally, we suggest promising new avenues for data collection and empirical research.

Despite the voluminous literature on the potentials of single-sex schools, there is no consensus on the effects of single-sex schools because of student selection of school types. We exploit a unique feature of schooling in Seoul—the random assignment of students into single-sex versus coeducational high schools—to assess causal effects of single-sex schools on college entrance exam scores and college attendance. Our validation of the random assignment shows comparable socioeconomic backgrounds and prior academic achievement of students attending single-sex schools and coeducational schools, which increases the credibility of our causal estimates of single-sex school effects. The three-level hierarchical model shows that attending all-boys schools or all-girls schools, rather than coeducational schools, is significantly associated with higher average scores on Korean and English test scores. Applying the school district fixed-effects models, we find that single-sex schools produce a higher percentage of graduates who attended four-year colleges and a lower percentage of graduates who attended two-year junior colleges than do coeducational schools. The positive effects of single-sex schools remain substantial, even after we take into account various school-level variables, such as teacher quality, the student-teacher ratio, the proportion of students receiving lunch support, and whether the schools are public or private.

Intramyocardial injection of pCK-HGF-X7 induced significant angiogenesis at infarct-border zone, and increased the left ventricular stroke volume probably caused by reverse remodeling process.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies was conducted to assess the association between menopausal hormone therapy and cardiovascular disease. The PubMed and EMBASE databases were searched for articles published from 2000 to 2019, using review methods based on a previous Cochrane review. Quality assessment of RCTs and observational studies was conducted using the Jadad scale and the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale, respectively. A total of 26 RCTs and 47 observational studies were identified. The study populations in the RCTs were older and had more underlying diseases than those in the observational studies. Increased risks of venous thromboembolism [summary estimate (SE), 95% confidence interval (CI): RCTs, 1.70, 1.33–2.16; observational studies, 1.32, 1.13–1.54] were consistently identified in both study types, whereas an increased risk of stroke in RCTs (SE: 1.14, 95% CI: 1.04–1.25) and a decreased risk of myocardial infarction in observational studies (SE: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.75–0.84) were observed. Differential clinical effects depending on timing of initiation, underlying disease, regimen type, and route of administration were identified through subgroup analyses. These findings suggest that underlying disease and timing of initiation should be carefully considered before starting therapy in postmenopausal women.